mth switches

[Ron]

hello, i am starting my first o gauge (8’ by 14’) layout and like mth realtrac very much. i would like to know if the realtrac switches are any good. can anyone give me some feed back on this? thank you very much.

[rtraincollector]

Not sure now but back a few years ago a few in here had big trouble with MTH switches

[phillyreading]

I remember a little about the MTH switches and boy did they get blasted! It was mentioned that the switches were bad right out of the box, take it out of the box and it was in pieces. Maybe MTH has fixed that, I don’t know. I use Gargraves track and switches as Lionel left me upset with their lack of quality switch in O gauge tubular track.

[rtraincollector]

also if you really want to use MTH track there is conversion pieces you can get from Gargraves I believe where you could use there switches and MTH track it might have to be you buy MTH conversion to O track and then the conversion pieces from Gargraves to O

[gunrunnerjohn]

For simple reliability, I use Fastrack. If you want something more realistic, I like Atlas track and Ross switches.

[Dannyboy6]

I agree with gunrunnerjohn. My Lionel layout is all Fastrack with their turnouts, and they are flawless. Some of the earlier manual O36 turnouts can be made electric fairly easily as well if you want to start out with a lower cost. Yes, I know it’s noisy, but any brand of embedded roadbed track will be.

A word of caution, however, if you ever plan to run scale car carriers, passenger cars, or larger engines, design your layout with minimum O60 turnouts. When I started out, my LHS didn’t suggest that, and I ended up having some limitations regarding what will run on my layout. Also, O60s give you the tightest yard configuration, FYI.

Dan

[Wabashbud]

I bought used Realtrax switches on Ebay for a carpet RR five years ago. They arrived well used and needed cleaning. However, they worked fine, until I built my layout, and now generally are used each Christmas around the tree. Still working fine.

[Buckeye_Riveter]

We have been discussing MTH Real Track Switches on this forum for over six year. Here is what I posted many years ago as the Chief and I were starting to find out about an MTH problem.

[quote user=“Buckeye Riveter”]

The switches i liked were MTH Real Track switches. Like i said a minor thing only all these years i’ve had the two No 042 switches and always liked the red\green lanturn’s. Checked the price on Real Track and it costs a little less any quirks to working with Real Track over Fast Track? I know Real Track uses Lock On but don’t know what the bottom of a piece of Real Track looks like wondering of i could still soder the wires under the track instead of all the Lock On’s?

Before you fall in love with RealTrax Switches read this:

[quote user=“Buckeye Riveter”]

Chief…I hope you are paying attention because you need to see how I solved my problem with the MTH O-72 Realtrax Switches. Oh!! What’s that? You say the Chief is off goofing off fishing at the lake? Anyway, here goes.

A little history about the MTH Realtrax Switch Problem:

The Chief and I installed a bunch of MTH Realtrax Switches on our layout. I have 12 MTH Switches and the Chief has a few more. When I started my layout, Fastrack by Lionel had not been born. About half way through the building of the second phase of my layout, I started to notice that the newer track did not fit as well as the old. The Chief was seeing the same thing as he connected his Realtrax. (Incidentally, someone in the last month provided a history about the manufacturing changes of Realtrax…THANK YOU!)

The Chief and I really became upset when the new O-72 Realtrax Switches started not to work. The Chief had switches that the switch motors were DOA. I opened a box of a su